I don't want to give up playing a character I'm fond of or limit her actions because I don't want a particular skill to go up. I just wish there was an option to accept a skill raise after the required number of say successful blade hits and a limit on the total raises you can aquire. I would prefer a character to only be able to max out a few skills or be a medium skilled character in many. New characters are all pretty similar is abilities and long played characters after most skills are maxed are again pretty similar. The most differentiation seems to be in the mid leveled character. Perks help some to differentiate old characters but not enough. I'd like to be able to sell stuff without raising my skill or use a beginning spell without ever raising my spell abiliy if that fits my character concept. I'd like my mage to be a permanently inept fighter even if she occasionally uses a knife in desperation.

If you're on PC, the Community Uncapper lets you choose level caps for each skill. I'd post a link, but Nexus is down again.

Here it is: http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/1175/?

Player: "Got stuff."

Shopkeeper: "Alright."

Player: "Ok."

*Speech increased to 100*

*Becomes master trader*

It would be cool if Bethesda decided to add your own level caps under the option menu. Then again, the more times your mage protects herself with a knife, the more experienced she becomes.

There's a mod for that!